1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an evaporator, and in particular to a portable evaporator for use in the mining industry.
Specifically, the invention relates to an evaporator for use in the mining industry to reduce the volume of water in tailings ponds during reclamation. In order to keep the volume of water in tailings ponds to a minimum, it is necessary to supplement natural evaporation using a mechanical spraying device or evaporator. The evaporator jets fine streams of liquid from a tailings pond into a stream of air under pressure to effect evaporation of large volumes of liquid. It will be appreciated that the evaporator can be used for other purposes, i.e. for evaporating water other than that taken from tailings ponds.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Spraying devices or evaporators of the types disclosed herein are by no means new. Examples of such apparatus are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,069,091, issued to R. C. Giesse et al on Dec. 18, 1962; U.S. Pat. No. 3,269,657, issued to V. P. M. Ballu on Aug. 30, 1966; U.S. Pat. No. 3,319,890, issued to D. E. Wolford on May 16, 1967; U.S. Pat. No. 3,883,073, issued to V. P. M. Ballu on May 13, 1975; U.S. Pat. No. 5,269,461, issued to J. F. Davis on Dec. 14, 1993 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,737, issued to C. D. McGinnis et al on Apr. 5, 1994.
In general, while existing devices perform the desired function in varying degrees of efficiency, it has been found that a need still exists for an evaporator which can be used on virtually any terrain for quickly evaporating large volumes of liquid.